There are all sorts of benefits to collaborative working. Helping those within a business to better recognise and work towards shared goals, collaborative working can bring more ideas and expertise to the table when resolving problems, as well as solving those problems quicker and more efficiently.
Collaborative working can also prove to be a boost for employees, providing individuals with a greater sense of inclusion or even ownership over a task or project, while also potentially enhancing their own skills and knowledge, ultimately raising the bar for the entire workforce.
Microsoft has developed various tools to help businesses embrace collaborative working, which is arguably increasingly important given the rise of flexible working and the need for teams to stay in touch regardless of their physical location. Skype for Business is perhaps the most obvious tool you might think of when discussing shared ideas and collaboration. The instant messaging chat client has enabled global businesses to communicate with each other and internal teams to interact seamlessly, transforming the meeting space into a far more flexible, dynamic experience.
Microsoft has more recently encouraged businesses to move to Microsoft Teams, touted by the company as “a complete meeting and calling solution”. Having announced its intention to replace Skype for Business last year, Microsoft is pushing for Microsoft Teams to become the primary client for what it labels “intelligent communications” within Office 365. Messaging, cloud-based meetings with support for up to 250 participants, video calling, apps integration… these features all lie at the heart of Teams.
Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business both provide business environments with the ability to communicate, meet and work on ideas to produce efficient results quickly. Microsoft Teams is a particular leap forward for companies as users can be more productive by integrating multiple apps in the one space.
Office 365 has further empowered teams to work together on projects by recognising that the working environment has changed. Today’s workers now check and edit documents on their tablet devices before going into the office. People make changes to presentations on their home laptops after putting the kids to bed, and share files with others using their mobile phones. The idea that workforces can be productive from anywhere and at any time has been embraced by many, and Office 365 has been developed for modern working.
Online storage service OneDrive has created a space for users to store, share, edit and collaborate. Instead of emailing files to colleagues, users can save them securely to OneDrive, which itself can be accessed from within a browser or online app. Control over any files is easily manage, with options for viewing, sharing and editing.
Of course, for the sharing and editing aspects of OneDrive to work as well as they do, Office 365 also provides real-time co-authoring so that if you’re working on the same document as someone else, you see those changes happening in real-time.
Beyond Office, Microsoft’s SharePoint platform is also worth considering. SharePoint has various aspects to it, including intranet, document management, publishing sites, collaborative software and content management. It’s a useful web-based platform for sharing content, knowledge and applications among team members and for collaborative ideas and content sharing, it’s certainly worth a look.
Microsoft has developed an array of tools in acknowledgement of the benefits collaborative working brings. Which ones you use will obviously depend on your particular need, but there’s no excuse for your teams to feel alone.
Unsure whether Microsoft's collaborative working tools are for you? Contact us to find out how they can help your business work more effectively and efficiently.